


too hot, too cold, just right

by aunt_zelda



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, BDSM, BDSM Scene, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Body Modification, Burns, Canon Asexual Character, Crying, Cupping, Dubious Consent, F/M, Flogging, Hypnotism, M/M, Non-Consensual Groping, Other, Paddling, Riding Crops, Rope Bondage, Safeword Use, Sensory Deprivation, Suspension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23872477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: Normal People AU, no powers, no avatars.Jonathan Sims is an asexual submissive in search of a new dom after his current one ends things. There's an array of potential candidates to interview.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Jonathan Sims, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 26
Kudos: 351





	too hot, too cold, just right

**Author's Note:**

> I'm ace. I'm kinky. A fic about an ace character engaging in bdsm with a partner helped me realize I was ace. 
> 
> While I hold no such lofty ambitions with this fic, I wanted to write this because ... it's something I would want to read. This might also be somewhat motivated by spite, and frustration.
> 
> There are moments of dubious consent in here, please proceed with caution. If you feel I've neglected any tags/warnings, please comment below or message me on tumblr (link on my profile) about them. I would much rather people be prepared

They’ve been scening together for nearly half a year when Elias tells him he should seek out a new dom.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Jon asks, sitting up on the couch Elias had lowered him down onto a half hour previously. 

“No, Jon. But I do think you should find someone else.” Elias sighs. “I had hoped we might acclimate, but in these past months I think it’s become rather apparent our personalities are not well aligned.”

Jon blinks at him.

“You’re too much of a switch for your own good. I can’t control you entirely. You resist me even in subspace. Sometimes I can feel you pushing back, without even realizing.” Elias shakes his head. “I can help you find someone new. I know everyone at the club. I’ve even got a few ideas.”

Jon’s stomach twists at the idea of becoming vulnerable to new people. But Elias is far more experience than he is at all this. If Elias thinks they aren’t going to work out, then that’s the end of it. “… fine. Who’s up first?”

~*~

Peter Lukas, one of Elias’ exes, is eerily similar to Elias. Mature, fit in the way only the wealthy can achieve, wears a suit to the club. His specialty is sensory deprivation: blindfolds, gags, earplugs, tight bindings. Jon is reminded uncomfortably of hawks kept hooded for transportation. 

Jon dislikes blindfolds. He very much dislikes gags. It’s an unpleasant experience all around. He hates the thought of Peter Lukas leaving him in the room alone, with Jon unable to notice. Jon especially hates the dreary sea shanties Lukas plays during their scene to mask the sounds of his footsteps.

Peter Lukas’ aftercare is a joke. Jon leaves their session feeling cold, as if there was no aftercare at all. He stumbles on the stairs to the underground and feels his stomach lurch unpleasantly. 

“Not him,” he texts Elias when he’s gotten himself home. 

“Too distant?” Elias responds. 

“Yes.”

“Pity. I’ll set up someone else for next time.”

Jon groans and shucks out of his clothes. 

The phone dings again. “Take a hot shower. Put on a podcast or something with voices tonight. And eat something with sugar.”

Jon scowls, but does as he’s told. In time, the ache in his chest subsides. He wonders if Elias has ever felt this painfully alone after a scene with Lukas, and shakes the thought from his mind. He’s still mad at Elias for breaking up with him after all. 

~*~

Gerry looks like he’s in the wrong club, all long hair and eyeliner and a shirt for a metal band. There’s a goth bar down the street and Jon has half a mind to point him in that direction. Then he notices the grin on Gerry’s face and suddenly Elias is introducing them. 

“I knew his mother, if you can believe it. Small world.” Elias chuckles and rests a hand on Jon’s shoulder. Jon both wants to lean into the touch and recoil. 

At the mention of his mother, Gerry scowls. “Get your mitts off him,” he snaps at Elias.

Elias withdraws the hand and Jon feels as though a far heavier weight has been lifted.

Jon looks at Gerry with renewed interest. 

“Well, come on then,” Gerry nods to a back room. 

Gerry is … dedicated. He knows how to be safe, most of the right questions to ask. He stretches Jon out and contorts his body at improbable angles. It’s good, and Jon can see the appeal. It’s just … not for him. He thanks Gerry for his time and apologizes. 

“Nothin’ to be sorry for.” Gerry shrugs. “You’re a good sort. You’ll find someone. Someone better than that prick Elias.”

It still feels wrong, to trash talk Elias, so Jon smiles thinly and nods at Gerry’s words. 

~*~

Jon lasts all of five minutes with Daisy before calling his safeword. She glares at him and slinks off to find her regular partner, muttering about a lost bet. 

He shudders, looking at her police uniform and calloused hands. Whatever she was about to do to him, he wants no part of it. 

~*~

Nikola is overwhelmingly friendly. She binds him to a chair and prances around, brandishes tools with so much enthusiasm Jon’s head spins. Nikola’s an odd one sure but Jon starts to think perhaps this could work.

Then Nikola gets a bit too handsy, past the boundaries Jon put in place. She hikes his shirt up and strokes his skin, fingers prodding lower and lower. Jon jolts in his chair.

“Red!” he yelps. 

For a terrible moment Jon thinks Nikola isn’t going to stop. 

She unties him, humming cheerfully, but as she puts away her tools she’s frowning. 

Jon rights his shirt and hurries out of the room. 

~*~

Oliver seems the right fit at first. He wraps Jon up in thick black straps and finally Jon can relax again. The first session gives way to a second, then a third. 

But Jon can’t help but notice the red flags. The club has rules about risky play, rules that Oliver keeps brushing against. Rules about edgeplay, about blades and blood and breath control. He’s waterboarded someone apparently, an experience he waxes poetic about at any chance. Oliver’s tone becomes eerie as he describes the “bliss” of wrapping his fingers around someone’s throat and squeezing the breath from their body. 

Oliver starts to look at Jon’s throat. He starts to let his hands linger on Jon’s shoulders during their sessions. Once he ghosts his finger over Jon’s carotid artery, feeling the pulse. 

“You’re so full of life.” Oliver murmurs.

Jon gulps, and at the session’s conclusion, asks not to see Oliver again. 

~*~

Jude Perry frightens Jon. She’s very careful with the glass bowls she places on his back, and bringing a flame so close to his skin he swears he can feel his hair singeing. But there’s something about the way she talks about fire, heat, and submission, that nags at the back of his mind. 

Jon’s suspicions are validated when she switches to candles and he notes that she’s got at least one candle that isn’t safe for skin application. He holds his tongue and waits. 

Sure enough, her hand “slips” towards the end of the session and hot wax, far too hot for the usual type used in BDSM, splatters onto his wrist. 

“Oh I’m so sorry” she says flatly, as Jon whimpers. 

“No, you’re not.” Jon gasps out, recoiling. “Thank you, but I don’t wish to see you again.” 

~*~

Maxwell is probably the oldest person in the club. Jon’s seen the man with his acolytes, eager young people fawning over him out of respect and hopefulness. There’s jealousy from them when he deigns to give Jon the privilege of a private scene, envy that they weren’t chosen for such an honor. 

“Have you ever been hypnotized, lad?” Maxwell asks.

“A little.” Jon shrugs. 

“Hah! Amateurs. I invented these techniques. Lie down.” Maxwell nods stiffly to a long couch. 

Jon obeys, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Now, the important thing is to let go.” Maxwell murmurs, the words sounding like they’ve been repeated many times before. “Surrender to the darkness within your heart.”

Jon bites back a laugh with difficulty. How old is this man?

“Yesssss … feel the darkness … give yourself over to it …” Maxwell snaps his fingers, and the lights in the room go out. 

Unseen, Jon rolls his eyes.

“Still … still … feel your limbs going numb … as you sink down … down … down …”

Jon tries to relax, but he can’t help but feel rooted to the present, wondering if Maxwell’s even close by anymore or addressing a wall. 

“Imagine a sun, but instead of light … darkness …”

Jon stifles a yawn with difficulty. It’s going to be a long, dull night. 

~*~

Jon’s night with Jared is anything but boring. 

The big man has lurked at the edges of the club for some time now. Every time he seems to have something new happening: a shaved head, a dramatic piercing, a lurid tattoo sprawling over one beefy arm. The man is nearly seven feet tall and bulges with muscles. 

Jon’s becoming desperate, so he takes Elias’ hesitant recommendation and agrees to a scene one night. 

Jared works him over hard, first with paddles, then with floggers, until Jon’s skin feels raw and warm and stretched. He actually listens when Jon calls his safeword. 

“Think you can endure it?” Jared asks, after proposing suspension bondage. “You’re all limber now, you could do it I bet, if we go slow.”

Jon’s never done suspension before. “… sure.”

The pain is exquisite. Jon breathes steadily and feels like he’s finally starting to get what he craves. 

“Fuck, you’re made for this.” Jared growls with approval, tracing a thick finger along Jon’s jawline. “You ever look into body modification?”

The conversation from there devolves in a manner that makes it clear Jon and Jared are not destined for long term commitment with each other. Jared wants partners who will go to extreme lengths at achieving their personal perfection: split tongues, corset piercings, genital rings, ribs removed to increase flexibility. 

For the first time in his life, Jon is too vanilla for someone. 

~*~

Melanie and Jon get on like a house on fire. She shoves him over a desk and takes a crop to him, and the biting sting is nearly perfect, but something just isn’t quite right. He critiques her technique and she snaps at him and he snaps back and soon they’re having a shouting match so loud one of the dungeon monitors arrives to make sure they’re ok. 

They are, oddly enough. It was cathartic and Jon has a buzzy energetic feeling after their scene. He doesn’t want to try with Melanie again but he grins at her all the same. 

“What have you got to be smirking about?” she grumbles, but he catches her smiling too. 

They go out for a drink afterwards at a nearby pub. Turns out they’ve got a lot in common, even a mutual ex. They exchange numbers after the third pint. Jon heads home with the strange, unfamiliar realization he’s probably made a friend.

~*~

“Mr. Spider? No.”

“Really Jon, the rest of them are newcomers or unicorn-hunters. Stop being stubborn and meet with him.” Elias snaps.

Jon’s been avoiding the last dom on the list for several months now. He’s seen the man about, a chubby fresh-faced bloke who smiles as easily as breathing and is on hugging terms with at least half the club. Jon’s got nothing against the man himself, by all accounts he’s a perfectly good dom. It’s just … his club name. 

It’s stupid but Jon had a bad experience with a book as a child that has forever tainted the name “Mr. Spider” in his mind. The mere thought brings bile to his throat. 

Still, Jon has exhausted every other option at the club. Word is getting around. He’s too picky. He’s too desperate. He’s too complicated. 

“You know I’m asexual?” Jon asks as he sits down with Mr. Spider. 

The man doesn’t seem surprised. “Well yes I’d heard, something about that …” he admits, looking somewhat abashed at admitting to something like gossip in a BDSM club.

“Good. And I mean that. That’s not a challenge, or a test, or a trauma you can help me ‘heal’ from. It’s who I am.”

“Of course.” The man frowns. “Is that why you’ve had such a difficult time, finding someone?”

Jon thinks of Nikola’s hands, of some _thing_ that touched him during Maxwell’s blackout session. “Not … not only that.”

“Okaaaay. And why have you been avoiding me?”

Jon is startled by the man’s bluntness. “Your … your nickname.” He squirms. 

“Afraid of spiders, are you?” the man smiles what must be a winning smile, from his reputation here. Jon aches for that comfort, that acceptance. Lacking Elias’ guiding hand has definitely left him adrift regarding this aspect of his life. 

“It’s stupid, I’m sorry,” Jon stands to go. “I’ve wasted your time –”

“No! Jon, please … please sit down?” the man sounds nervous and not at all the confident smug bastard Jon had been expecting. 

Jon does sit down, if only to avoid causing a scene in front of the rest of the club. He doesn’t need more negative rumors attached to him. 

“Listen, it’s just a silly name I came up with years ago. I’m not married to it. You can uh … call me …” he chews his lip. “Web … ster.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Mr. Webster?”

“If you like!” the man smiles hopefully. 

Jon muses on that. He thinks of the many doms he’s already gone through. One night with “Mr. Webster” can’t be worse than Nikola, and he knows nobody goes home feeling like rubbish from one of this man’s sessions like they do after one with Peter Lukas. 

“… fine.”

Webster looks a little hurt at the petulant tone, but he doesn’t say anything. “Want to go to one of the back rooms?” 

Jon follows Webster down the hallway and into one of the many private play spaces. He tries not to get his hopes up, but also tries not to bias himself against a new experience. This could be another Gerry maybe, at best.

“How are you with ropes?” Webster asks.

“I like them.” Jon loves them, but he doesn’t want to babble about the nuances of silk and synthetic and hemp. He wants to see what Webster will do with the ropes. 

“I’d hoped so, it’s kind of my whole deal.” Webster grins, glancing down at the multiple options. “Soft? Rough?”

“Soft?” Jon likes to strain against rough ropes but that’s a conversation for a later day, if there is a later day with Webster. Elias hadn’t liked it when he’d struggled; he’d chastised Jon for “excessive energy” during their scenes. 

“Mmmm, I think …” Webster compares two sets against Jon’s arm and picks the dark green. “Lovely.”

Jon licks his lips. 

“Would you be comfortable shirtless, or would you rather do this with your shirt on?” Webster asks. “There’s no wrong answer, I promise.”

“… on.” Jon says, watching Webster’s face for disappointment. 

Webster nods placidly. “Ok. Shall we sit down?”

Jon sits on the long leather bench in the center of the room. 

Webster holds up the rope. “Hold our your arms please? Press them together … yes.”

Jon watches as Webster braids the rope around his arms, weaving and twisting and tying until Jon is perfectly pinned. Webster stands at certain points, wrapping the ropes around Jon’s torso now, binding Jon’s arms over his chest protectively. Jon feels a warm thrum of safety engulfing him, despite the relative stranger wrapping him up in ropes. 

“I’m going to do your legs next. Lie back … there you go …” Webster murmurs, gently guiding Jon down to lie flat on the bench. 

Jon appreciates that Webster doesn’t tell him to “relax.” Jon struggles dreadfully with relaxing, especially with someone new. 

“There are safety scissors over there,” Webster says softly, bringing over two new lengths of rope and knotting them to the harness around Jon’s torso. “Say the word, at any time, I’ll cut these off of you.”

“Thank you …” Jon can feel his words starting to drag out longer than usual. He’s not slurring yet but it’s a near thing. He hasn’t felt this in so long. 

Jon starts to drift into a comforting haze as Webster curls the ropes around his legs, latching his knees and ankles together. It’s not too tight, and the pressure is wonderfully grounding. This is nothing like Maxwell’s ridiculous speeches, Jude’s casual cruelty, or Oliver’s unsettling intimacy.

“I’m going to count backwards. Repeat the numbers for me, please.” Webster has taken a position behind Jon’s head. He lightly touches his fingers to Jon’s head, hair, scalp, tracing small patterns. “Twenty.”

“… Twenty.” Jon says, wondering what the point of this is.

“Don’t think. Just count. Nineteen.”

“Nineteen.” Don’t think? Jon’s always thinking. Elias was always trying to get him to slow down, submit properly, be a good little stupid toy – 

“I can see you thinking. Eighteen.”

“Eighteen.” Jon has a defiant edge to his tone now, but it’s hard to hold onto anger now with Webster’s fingers in his hair. 

“You can fight if you like, but I’ve got you now. Focus. Seventeen.”

“… Seventeen.” Jon admits, feeling oddly compelled to give the number. 

“Better. Sixteen.”

The next few numbers start to blur. Jon’s eyelids droop. Webster’s voice is steady and certain. He’s starting to feel oddly weightless, despite the pressure and constant touching sending pleasant shivers down his spine. 

“Don’t worry, I’m here. Six.”

Jon feels his head nodding languidly. “I’m here … six.”

“I’m going to take good care of you. Five.”

“Yes … five …”

“You’re going to drift off nicely for me in a few seconds. Four.”

“Mmmmmm … four.”

“Just drift, I’m here to bring you back when you’re ready. Three.”

“Three.”

“No pressure … nothing … let go … Two.”

“… tuh … two …” Jon’s voice feels distant. 

“Easy, easy … One.”

Jon drifts, spiraling deep and distant, but somehow close and warm at the same time. This isn’t the hideous dark emptiness Maxwell spoke about, or the exquisite remaking Jared swore by. This is exactly what Jon was hoping to find. 

Half an hour later Jon starts to come back to himself. Webster is wiping his face.

“Oh, sorry just, you were crying,” Webster holds up a sodden cloth. “I was trying to clean you up.”

Jon feels his mouth quirk up into a rare smile. “Thank you, Webster.”

Webster looks conflicted, then nods to himself. “It’s ‘Martin,’ really. If you wanted to know. When I first got into the scene I was scared to give out my real name and it just … stuck.”

“Lovely to meet you, Martin.” Jon holds out a slightly swaying hand. 

Martin shakes his hand, and steadies him. “Let’s get you some water.”

It takes several sessions to be certain, after so much frustration and doubt, Jon almost can’t bring himself to believe his search is over. Finally, Jon can’t deny it: he’s found a new dom at long last.


End file.
